Hey, Let’s Give David Gallant More Money Than He Needs

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One thing we keep hearing is how generous the RPS community is. We keep seeing evidence of it too, and many developers have published their Kickstarter stats showing RPS readers chucking in the most. You lot are brilliant!

I should stress that I’ve no affiliation with Gallant, never met him, and haven’t even played his Call game. I just thought it would be cool for us all to give a guy too much money. He’s entirely unfairly out of work, sales of the game covered his rent until May, and the dude needs cash.

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Editorial control is something that pretty much nobody gets. Mega “Celebrities” very rarely (and in those instances the resultant interview is generally a dull fluff piece), anyone at less stratospheric heights, never.

And this is generally a good thing, the result otherwise would be naught but a stream of PR pieces. Occasionally however a journo sexes up a story a little too much to the real detriment of a “normal” person who just happened to be in the middle of their 15 minutes of fame.

I really like this post and the idea behind it, but I just can not support it. I started off being a big fan of David, following his progress from well before the controversy around him getting fired for his game. I have played his game, and it is indeed an interesting experiment and has certainly has a place and is worth talking about.

However, David seems to be struggling with being a developer in the worst ways. Anytime he asks for help, usually on twitter, the many useful responses he gets from myself and others are met with hostility and such negativity (towards the other person as well as himself) that it is no joy to try to help him anymore. There is nothing wrong with asking for help and in this community it is even highly encouraged to do so, but it honestly feels like he only reaches out to the community so they can respond with praise while he shoots down everything for being too difficult and does not do anything with advice he receives.

I am sorry to do this, but I have followed David fairly closely for a while now and the thought of giving him money and even more attention while countless other developers that actually struggle through trying can’t get anywhere seems highly unfair. I do not know him personally and obviously I could be wrong, but I feel like there should be a counterpoint to this post. Investors beware.

I’ve seen some of the advice he (and others) get given over Twitter. It’s invariably shit and inappropriate. I wouldn’t follow it either. Especially some of the stuff he used to get from established devs. That used to make me near shit myself with embarrassment as they’d pull the BUT I’M HELPING YOU horseshit when told that something wasn’t right or appropriate or that they were getting way too ahead, way too fast.

Maybe IMPoss’s advice wasn’t that and that advice was sound advice but the thing about advice? Just because it’s given doesn’t mean someone has to take it, y’know? We all have to decide what’s right and what’s wrong for us and more often than not, what’s right and wrong for someone else is not the same thing.

My top tip? If anyone is going to give advice over the internet then do just that and know that no-one has to be the person you want them to be, no-one has to follow it. Even if someone thinks they’re pushing for what they believe to be the right or the easiest way to do something, it’s just advice, not a command or an order.

Not doing what someone else tells you to do is perfectly fine. I find someone saying “fuck someone else for not listening to me” far more egregious than not listening to someone else’s advice, but that’s me.

FWIW, I’ve always found David to be both pleasant, honest, fighting the good fight and very often, a rational and kind person in the midst of absolute chaos. I don’t care if he doesn’t listen to me or do game dev how I might want him to and I don’t judge him around that. I judge him for what he is and what he stands for and that’s more than most people I encounter throughout the days.

There is no onus. You just either believe what you read or you take it with a grain of salt. Research yourself if you are actually curious.
Just some blue, underlined letters doesn’t make something true. It’s better without the link, so you can double check yourself.

“It’s better without the link, so you can double check yourself.” I like to think this is why Christopher Hitchen’s books don’t have much referencing. It is always better just to read into the topic and get as much sources about it as you can, not just follow the references that have been provided and hence not the ones that have been omitted.

What IMposs says is certainly true: I get frustrated at times, particularly when attempting to learn new development skills. And I have lashed out, wrongly, at people who have tried to help me in the past. I have apologised for this as well, but honestly, an apology alone isn’t really enough to make up for my rude behaviour.

IMposs is right; always look into something (or someone) before endorsing them with your money.

IMposs: I’m sorry that I don’t recall who you are on Twitter or in what conversation I wronged you. I was probably out of line, though, and I am sorry.

In your defense, I think there is a lot of snottiness with programmers(i’m being specific for a reason) giving programming help. That’s where I’ve seen a lot of your questions go consfusingly unanswered or they just give you the yahoo answer standby “Do your own homework”(sort of). This isn’t specific to gaming though, it’s a problem in the larger tech sphere where developers really struggle with being friendly/helpful – especially to adults trying to change careers or just to learn.

I would say there’s a complex culture with regards programmers helping one-another.

There is an amazing wealth of information on all aspects of programming available online. Almost all of it is provided by people who receive no financial reward for taking significant time and effort to provide that information. People really love to program, and they love to share that. There’s a rich, altruistic world of programming tutorials out there.

But programmers are often impatient when helping newcomers. I think mainly because there is so much information available already that whatever their question is it has almost certainly been answered before. Often you can literally paste the question as written into Google and get a good answer. Fully understanding that answer will take some time, but learning anything well is going to take effort. Programmers don’t like inefficiencies in their code, and they don’t like it in answering questions either.

There’s also a fascinatingly frustrating angle to many questions, where the asker clearly doesn’t have the depth of knowledge to really understand what they’re asking. So any answer is going to be very difficult to give without also teaching them most of a computer science degree.

Someone’s making their tentative first steps into game programming and ask “how do I make AI like in Halo?” It so happens there are resources that explain exactly how Halo’s AI works. But you’ll need a huge amount of prerequisite knowledge to understand it and it can be difficult to explain that to an enthusiastic beginner.

Man who makes game about lampooning inanities spewed by annonymous people over the phone and the social pressure of being polite to them even when they’re very stupid, doesn’t like the inanities spewed by annonymous people over the internet and the social pressure of being polite to them even when they’re very stupid. Story at 11.

They are completely different. Having to be yelled at by idiots on the phone as part of your job isn’t nice but at the same time you know they are frustrated at the company and not at you, being polite in that situation is pretty easy especially when your continued employment is on the line. Then comes the people yelling crap on twitter, they are attacking you directly and you only have social pressure stopping you from lashing out or becoming defensive … yeah we’ve all seen how well that works.

I kind of hope he’s joking about the I Get This Call sequel (description of the $650 tier). Wasn’t that a very personal thing, reflective of his then-current life, no longer applicable in any way? Mentioning a sequel to that is more or less confirming it’s the only idea he’s ever had.

Maybe the sequel will be about getting fired, and the dehumanizing process of termination meetings and how you have to act professional even though everyone in that room KNOWS you’re getting shitcanned, including yourself, and they don’t even tell it to your face but make you read it off a letter.

Agree – this is the second time this has happened (the first being Walker pushing everyone to fund that one Kickstarter) and while both seem very much worthy causes, the methodology for selecting them seems to be…Walker’s whims? I’m not sure. RPS makes no bones about being anything more than a collective of individuals, so it’s certainly within their remit, but I fear it may set a bad precedent as others rush to be part of a “give me money” post.

I thought the first time RPS really pushed a Kickstarter was that weird week when Nathan Grayson really tried to push Republique through, in multiple posts. That was actually really uncomfortable. I also got the feeling that some kind of line had been crossed there, and that since then a more.. demure approach was adopted.

I think the thing that raised my eyebrows about this particular occasion was that mr. Walker hasn’t even played Gallant’s game, which at least would’ve created some tenuous connection. Now it comes across a bit like “.. hey, I sort of know this guy..” etc.

And I think my feeling of discomfort comes mainly from the idea that you have to be very careful how you ‘steer’ your community, what you ask of it and what for. There’s a responsibility there.

All that said – yes, ofcourse this is RPS’ site, they can do whatever they like.

I have no idea who this guy is and the fact I see an article begging for rent money makes me wonder why I should care. Is he incapable of working in a warehouse or a some other shitty job to pay the rent untill he finds something better, you know what most people in this situation have to do? It really seems pathetic to me. High tech pan handling I guess. Fuck him there’s peoiple out there way more deserving of my charity than some lazy asshole with a kickstarter.

I would suggest actually reading the article, within the second paragraph of which is a helpful description of “who this guy is”, but at this point it’s reasonably obvious that you just can’t be bothered with such inanities.

To me this just seems extremely selfish and unncesary, and he was not fired from his job for making I get this call everyday, he was fired becuase it gave away security information about the compnay he worked for. If it wasn’t for him being David S Gallent he would only be seen as a lazy asshole on kickstarter.

I was fired for things posted to my website concerning I Get This Call Every Day (a review quote that said call centres were horrible), not lying to a reporter when said reporter found out I worked for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), and for not submitting the game to CRA for review prior to release (which is policy for anything a public servant creates in their spare time that could be remotely linked back to their employment at CRA).

No confidential information was disclosed in I Get This Call Every Day. Everything in the game is inspired by that job, and other jobs I’ve had, but the details are fictional. Billy J Swarth is a made-up character, his addresses and income amounts are made up; his SIN is even one character short, JUST IN CASE the fake one I made up might accidentally correspond to a real one. The notion that I was fired for disclosing security information about my job in the game is 100% FALSE.

It’s fair of you to call me lazy and selfish (I even admit the request is selfish on the IndieGoGo page itself). But please, get your facts straight before you accuse me of committing a federal crime. I worked for Canada Revenue Agency, a federal government agency in Canada that handles income tax. If I HAD disclosed confidential information, I’d be facing federal prosecution right now.

Unfairly and unlawfully are not the same thing. Without getting into an ethics vs. law argument or anything that severe, the nature of at-will employment is that you can be fired on a legally legitimate basis but for unfair reasons. Whether it was actually unfair, however, is up to the reader/viewer/commenter/whatever.

Bhazor, why do you bother to read this site? You hate the editorial style, you hate talking about feminism, you clearly don’t like John Walker… I don’t think I’ve read a single positive comment from you in my time here

To further clarify: the security questions in the game are modeled after the same types of security questions asked by CRA agents to verify a caller’s identity. You could hear these same security questions right now if you were to call CRA. The Questions themselves are not categorized as a Classified document.

So, yes, I have offered a little peak into how security operates at CRA, but not in a way that endangers CRA or Canadian taxpayers. Hell, this matter wasn’t even mentioned on my termination letter.

Wow, just take a look at what you wrote. Are you really okay with being that guy?

No one is “begging”. The man put up an IndieGoGo that no one was obliged to donate to, and left it at that. I spotted it, and thought it would a fun random-acts-of-kindness thing to highlight. Your anger makes no sense in response to that.

You go on to say,

” Why the fuck should we help him?

Why aren’t you helping me? I’m a guy down on his luck who needs another job, give me money!”

Why should we help him? Because we can? Because we might want to? Because we might have enjoyed his game, and wanted to help him make more?

Why aren’t we helping you? Well, first of all you need to put that question in the context of your having posted incredibly dickish comments in public about how it’s bad to help people out. You seem to be rather strongly suggesting that you’re against people helping. So, you know.

Secondly, if you need help, people might actually want to help you out. Being an arsehole isn’t probably the right way of going about it, of course.

I’m sick and tired of your personal crusades, you massive twat. Help the people of Syria, John, help the people of the Sudan, John. Don’t come crying to me (and the other readers of RPS) with your “pals of the industry need your help” bollocks, because that’s exactly what it is. I get that you’re in the industry and that is the where and how you should focus on, but not with this shit, John. I would far rather give money to needy causes, not some ignorant git asking for advertising money when thousands of people are being killed all over the world.

He’s a man, walking down the street and yelling at anything because he lost a job. He is propablby drunk. Do not judge hin. Do not pity him. Just let him walk by and ignore his yelling. He will feel sorry for himself when he wakes up again and the more you push the more embaressing it will get.

I would say “It takes one to know one,” except that would imply that John is strange for wanting to direct money toward someone who seems to deserve it. Which he isn’t.

I’m very sorry you were laid off, and I hope you find employment elsewhere. But to act like John, a person you only know through his writng, has done anything wrong by asking people to help out someone who needs money is deeply odd indeed.

“Because we might have enjoyed his game, and wanted to help him make more?”

“Any extra funds might go towards a place to stay in California, upgrading from the current plan of crashing at a stranger’s place. Anything beyond that is going straight to rent & bills.” Reading that it doesnt look like it will help him make more, it is all for personal gain…
I havent been on vacation in years but I really wanna go, should I start some kickstarter for that? This whole campaign is just ridiculous.

When someone has made around 13,500 selling a game and has a wife with a steady paycheck as he says, they should manage their money better shouldnt they? With that 13,500 I could’ve paid rent all year long and maybe have that vacation I want.

This comment intrigued me so I did the math. Assuming a 2000-hour work year (8 hours x 5 days x 50 weeks) it works out to $6 per hour, about half of minimum wage. Considering the time it must have taken to make the game that’s a great return on investment, but surely sales were bolstered by the infamy and outreach of sympathy.

David’s humour and satire show great promise for his game-making career, but empathetic donations have likely carried him as far as they will. I wish him luck in his future productions.

The bulk of that money would have come in ages ago when the news story broke, that’s how these things tend to work. Also how things tend to work is that you need to spend money to live, y’know on rent and bills. So what happens there is people get money and spend it on existing. Then what happens is the money runs out because you’re spending it on existing. As the page says, the money ran out in May. It’s now September. Forget that number because that money has been spent.

But of course, this is the internet so I’m sure someone will come along and tell me that he shouldn’t have spent it next or something because there’s idiots abound. Please don’t be that person.

It’s amazing the total tubes that appear posting nasty things. Thank heavens it wadn’t an unemployed woman attending a feminism conference or RPS comments might have ended the universe with their mean spiritedness.

Every day on the street people ask me for money. Whether I donate or not, I never berate them for asking.

You’re not a ‘bad guy’. I just don’t see the need to say to attack the other guy. I’ve spent portions of my career on unemployment benefit and was thankful to each and every taxpayer who allowed me to support my family. I am now happy to fund others benefits through my taxes. I feel no desire to post that such-and-such don’t deserve something.

But you do feel a need to post in defense of said person, so you respect his right to beg for money on Kickstarter and feel the need to put that in to type. I’m not really seeing a difference between us here. Both are opinions, whether for or against. You’re jumping in to decry myself, and several others.

“…Why the fuck should we help him?…”
“… a man recently made redundant is being asked to help another man, who lost his own job due to foolishness? …”

That’s what LOTS of people do when they are in a bad patch, they help each other with the few they have, if they don’t have anything they find ways to help with deeds or words.
It is not rocket science, you give respect you get respect, you give shit…

Gallant is in such a strange, unenviable position of having been thrust in the position of an indie dev. He just wanted to keep his boring, soul-crushing job, but now he’s lost it and his hobby is his best bet to make money. Considering how many seasoned industry veterans are quitting their nine-to-fives to become indies his situation is an insane outlier.

I don’t understand people sometimes. The pledge itself says “This is a bit ridiculous and cheeky but…” and yet people come along and rant about how the whole thing is a bit ridiculous and cheeky.

Yes it is, but it’s also heartfelt, self-deprecating, witty and well written. The chap isn’t asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars, he’s pretty much asking for a quid or two per person to attend a dream conference. Hell he’s offering a copy of his previous game for 2 quid and the chance to watch him sing you a song for 7, so it’s not like you get absolutely nothing out of it.

David, hope you have a great time at IndieCade and it leads to greater things for you.

Can I just say this guy does not need any more money or for his ego to be inflated any more than it is. The Toronto Indie scene is SWAMPED with unemployed developers that are far more talented than this guy. Can I ask why this guy is so great? I Get This Call hardly deserves the praise it’s getting.